Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/295

 EUPHRON RETURNS TO SIKYON 273 immediately declared himself' an open partisan of Sparta. The harbor, a separate town and fortification at some little distance from the city (as Lechaeum was from Corinth), was thus held by and for the Spartans ; while Sikyon adhered to the Thebans and Arcadians. In Sikyon itself however, though evacuated by Eu- phron, there still remained violent dissensions. The returning exiles were probably bitter in reactionary measures ; the humbler citizens were fearful of losing their newly-acquired political privi- leges ; and the liberated slaves, yet more fearful of forfeiting that freedom, which the recent revolution had conferred upon them. Hence Euphron still retained so many partisans, that having procured from Athens a reinforcement of mercenary troops, he was enabled to return to Sikyon, and again to establish himself as mas- ter of the town in conjunction with the popular party. But as his opponents, the principal men in the place, found shelter along with the Theban garrison in the acropolis, which he vainly tried to take by assault, 1 his possession even of the town was altogether pre- carious, until such formidable neighbors could be removed. Ac- cordingly he resolved to visit Thebes, in hopes of obtaining from the authorities an order for expelling his opponents and handing over Sikyon a second time to his rule. On what grounds, after so recent a defection to the Spartans, he rested his hopes of success, we do not know ; except that he took with him a large sum of money for the purpose of bribery. 2 His Sikyonian opponents, alarmed lest he should really carry his point, followed him to Thebes, where their alarm was still farther increased by seeing him in fa- miliar converse with the magistrates. Under the first impulse of terror and despair, they assassinated Euphron in broad daylight, on the Kadmeia, and even before the doors of the Theban Sen- ate-house, wherein both magistrates and Senate were sitting. For an act of violence thus patent, they were of course seized forthwith, and put upon their trial, before the Senate. The magis- trates invoked upon their heads the extreme penalty of death, insisting upon the enormity and even impudence of the outrage, committed almost under the eyes of the authorities, as well as upon the sacred duly of vindicating not merely the majesty, but even the security of the city, by exemplary punishment upon of 1 Xen. Hellen. vii, 3, 9. 2 Xen. Hellen. vii, 3, 4-tr VOL. x. 12 18oc